


remove from heat and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving

by frankgrimes



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-12 03:59:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7084771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankgrimes/pseuds/frankgrimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone is running late for Tuesday night dinner and Iris deals with some setbacks. Barry helps. Kinda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	remove from heat and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving

**Author's Note:**

> I started this last year and then shelved it because of the finale. Then i picked it up again a couple months ago but now it definitely doesn't follow up with the show and there was no way i could try to update it to fit it in, esp after THAT finale lol ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ i just wanted to write something a little fun while i struggle w/ that bloom in winter.
> 
> Not beta'd! Sorry for all the mistakes.
> 
> Title from a recipe i found online.

Iris barged into her dad’s house with a paper bag filled to the brim with ingredients for tonight’s dinner. She hip-checked the door shut as soon as her keys slipped out of the lock, and as luck would have it her shoes gave her trouble when she tried to toe them off. An onion rolled out of the bag as she bent to slip her finger behind her heel. Screw it, she thought. There simply was no time to fish it from under the couch, so it would just have to wait there until after dinner, if she even remembered it.

It was pretty late to start prepping for their usual Tuesday night dinners but no one else was home yet. Dad had a sudden meeting with the State’s Attorney, Wally’s tutorial was running late, and Barry was finishing up at STAR labs. Iris thought she might have enough time to get everything in the oven before anyone else showed up.

This crunched for time, Iris’ limited options revolved around easy to make pasta dishes. The vegetables were chopped, and the skillet was nearly hot enough to start cooking. Iris gazed at everything laid out in the kitchen. At this rate, everything should be done by the time everyone else arrived. She loosened her shoulders, pleased at her timing, and picked up a jar of marinara.

She managed to twist the top off right when Barry zapped his way into the house through the back entrance in the kitchen. She jumped out of her skin at the sudden and unexpected intrusion, tossing the jar into the air. 

“Oh, my God!”

There was blink-and-you’ll-miss it jagged vein of bright yellow as Barry quickly grabbed the jar and zipped around the room, catching wayward splashes of tomato sauce, preventing them from staining the cabinets and the ceiling. Unfortunately he was too late to save Iris from that fate.

Her face and neck caught the majority of the damage, and she could feel the results of gravity pulling on the aftermath. The sensation of chunky garlic-infused tomato mush sliding down onto her top and into the valley between her breasts chilled her.

Barry was gaping at the sight of her, gripping the jar with both hands, his face twisted in a war between contrition and amusement. “I-I’m so sorry,” he stammered, clearly losing the war, “I didn’t know you were already here.”

Iris licked the sauce from her bottom lip and shot him a stern look. “Don’t laugh, Barry, I swear to God—”

His fingers were strumming the glass jar, now less than half full, and he broke into a smile. “I’m not!”

It took two steps to reach him and Iris stood on her tiptoes to land a very wet and messy kiss onto his cheek as retaliation. He burst laughing. 

“You are such a liar,” she accused, landing back with her feet flat on the floor and slapping him in the chest. “You’re lucky I bought two jars. You can finish cooking dinner because it’s already late and it’s the least you can do, _Flash_. I need to take a shower.”

He chuckled, looking just as ridiculous as her with the evidence of her tomato sauce revenge imprinted on one side of his face and his shirt.

“Okay, okay,” he said, wiping the sauce from his cheek with two fingers before popping them into his mouth. Iris could her face growing warm, and Barry glanced around the room, taking in the ingredients on the counter. He clapped his hands together. “So, what are we making exactly?”

Iris quickly walked him through the short instructions, and finished by pointing at the refrigerator, “Salad ingredients are in the fridge, and I haven’t baked the bread rolls yet, so—”

“Yup, got it. Go, clean up.”

“I’m borrowing your clothes, just so you know.”

Barry waved her off as he began to speed throughout the kitchen.

Quickly, Iris made her way upstairs, cautious not to let any of the sauce drip onto the floor. She grabbed a towel from the linen closet and removed her shirt and bra in the bathroom, carefully wiping off the sauce and soaking them in the sink. In her reflection in the mirror, she saw that miraculously none of it made it to her hair. 

She wiped her face clean, trying to ignore the image of Barry sucking the sauce off his fingers, and how her body was reacting to the memory. The weird, flirty tension between them had been brewing for a while ever since they talked about their Earth-2 doppelgängers at the club. It ebbed and flowed after they talked about Scott and Eddie, and after Barry returned from another earth with new energy and after Iris confessed that she didn’t think things with Scott was going to move forward after all, the two of them started to dance around each other more playfully, like how they were before the particle accelerator, and yet everything was heightened to another, unfamiliar level.

It felt electric, like she had heightened sensitivity to all his words and his movements. She would infer a double entendre when she was half sure he didn’t intend his words to mean anything more. Back rubs during a hug played like familiar roads their fingers travelled with relish. She would trace his face with her eyes when he wasn’t looking at her, overwhelmed with thoughts like ‘God, he is just so fucking…’ cute? Gorgeous? All of the above? She had always found his eyes interesting, how they’d teeter between blue and green depending on the light, how the corners crinkled when he smiled. She used to be jealous of how long his eyelashes were and she wasn’t quite sure when jealousy turned into yearning, to know how it would feel if they fluttered against her skin, against the spot where his lips could have been, as if he was trailing lower… She would feel like a horny creep for having these thoughts if she didn’t know and enjoy the fact that he obviously had the same about her.

And yet neither of them really did anything about it. What with all the metahuman activity, the threat of Zoom looming over them, they were stuck in limbo.

After dabbing her face dry, Iris decided to gather clothes from Barry’s room before hopping into the shower, so she wrapped the towel around her bare chest and left the bathroom.

It wasn’t until she finally stepped foot into Barry’s room that she realized that she hadn’t seen it since he moved back in. She remembered how it looked before he left for college, when it was lived in. Back then it still looked like a young boy lived there. Posters stuck onto the walls by strips of scotch tape on the corners, books and comics littering the floor, and figurines in disarray on his dresser. Now, instead, everything was laid about with more maturity. There were still posters on the wall, but now they were framed smartly and were actually hanged. The stacks of reading materials were littered on top of actual furniture rather than the floor, and there was only one action figure on his dresser, displayed like a trophy rather than a toy.

At closer inspection, Iris saw that it was _his_ action figure. The Flash. She laughed quietly to herself, fingering the lightning bolts on the sides of the head, reminded of how she managed to find another one on eBay last Christmas, and put it in his stocking to tease him.

“The rolls are in the oven. The sauce is simmering right now but I was thinking — Oh…” The door squeaked as Barry entered the room, but he started to back out as soon as he saw her in the towel.

“I use mine as a bookend.”

He stepped back in. “Hmm?”

“My Flash action figure,” Iris clarified, still fiddling with toy. “It’s on my bookshelf at my apartment. I thought about putting it on my desk at work because I’m the ‘Flash expert,’ but then I thought it’d be too much. Good thing I didn’t, the way Scott’s been riding me about you the past couple of weeks.”

“Is he still being an asshole?”

She rolled her eyes. 

Barry’s hand hovered at the small of her back as he squeezed himself between her and the edge of his bed to get around her, opening up a drawer and pulling out some clothes. She leaned her elbow on the dresser to rest her head against her hand, watching him rummage for clothes. He still had a stain on his shirt from earlier, and he tossed a fresh shirt for himself onto the bed behind him.

“He’s not an asshole. He’s just passionate. Wrong, but passionate.”

Barry’s brow twitched and he pursed his lips, humming skeptically. 

She slapped his arm half heartedly. “Oh, stop.”

“Here—” Barry held out a plain t-shirt and a STAR labs sweater for her.

“Can I borrow some sweat pants?”

“Um,” he grunted as he knelt down to open the bottom drawer, and Iris waited for him, hugging his clothes to her front.

“No, not that one,” Iris nudged his calf with her foot. “Beneath that – yeah, that one.”

Barry huffed, pulling out the old pair that he’d had since college. It was the one she borrowed whenever she visited him on his campus for the weekend. “I never knew you were so particular about my sweats.”

“What?” Iris shrugged. “I just want to be comfortable, and I know those are your favorite.”

He tossed her the pair and stood facing her. He bowed his head. “Anything else, Miss West? Would you like me to draw you a bath?”

“I’m this close to asking you to draw me a bubble bath, actually. I smell like an Italian bistro thanks to you,” she confessed.

Barry leaned forward to sniff her. He scrunched his nose as soon as he could smell the garlic from the sauce. “Sorry about that. But hey, you smell good enough to eat!”

Iris laughed, heat spreading across her cheeks at the inadvertent innuendo (was it?). He is eyes were alight with amusement. They stood like that, barely a foot of distance between them and grinning at each other like fools, for what seemed like minutes, in a trance, before Barry tore his eyes away, knocking on the dresser twice with his knuckles, standing straight. “Well, I should leave you to it, so…”

Iris felt herself sway towards him. “Wait.”

He paused.

"You came in here to ask me something about dinner?” Iris wondered.

“Yeah, um, there’s some extra mushrooms in the fridge from last week and I wanted to know if I could add it to the parmesan.”

The flirty tension practically disappeared at the thought and Iris gagged. “Ugh, the chanterelle ones? No, thank you.”

“You know those are a delicacy? They’re, like, 20 bucks per pound.”

“I don’t care. Ever since you told me about fungi that creates zombie ants, I can’t look at funky-looking mushrooms the same way.”

Barry looked confused. “Wait, what? I don’t remember this. Why would I bring up insect-pathogenising fungus? That’s weird.”

“It was like more than a year ago. We just got done watching some zombie movie and then you went on one of your nerd rants about how zombie ants were real,” Iris reminded him. “I couldn’t go to sleep that night because I googled it and went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. Fungi is disgusting, you’ve ruined mushrooms for me.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, remembering that night. Suddenly he asked, surprised, “You remembered that?”

“I’m insulted that you think I block you out when you get all nerd-rant on me. After all these years…” She shook her head at him. 

Barry had the decency to look sheepish. He gave her a short bow of his head. “Thank you for listening.”

“You’re welcome. Start a podcast and I’d probably listen.”

“Your subscription will much appreciated.”

“It should. I _am_ your number one fan. I got an action figure and everything.”

“You’d probably be the only one,” he laughed. “Well, the only one that matters to me.”

They had grown so close that Iris felt like she had no other choice but to give in to her desires and kiss him. So she did.

He must have felt the same way as his hands flew to her face, cupping her jaw. She closed her eyes, letting the clothes in her arms drop to the floor, sliding her hands from his shoulders to his neck, combing his soft brown hair between her fingers. 

This was it. The culmination of that tension, the weird, heightened energy that was brewing between them in the past weeks – years even – resulting in this kiss. If there was ever a moment in which Iris wished she had the same powers as Barry, it was now, wishing she could experience time slower, to memorize this, how his lips felt against hers, and how his hands moved from cradling her face to gripping her waist, twisting at the towel separating their skin.

As much as she wanted time, she thought to herself, _screw that_ , and pulled away. She couldn’t help the smirk forming at the corners of her lips after seeing him follow her with his eyes slightly dazed as if he were hypnotized.

"You are just…” Barry panted, his eyes searching her face, “the best.”

She smiled in response, taking a small step backward so he could watch her properly.

The towel was already loosened by Barry’s grip and all Iris had to do was tug on the rest of it, letting it pool around her feet. A nearly inaudible gasp escaped him and she nodded, a quiet _yeah_ escaping her lips. As soon as she could register the colder air on her chest, his lips were on her neck, kissing and sucking, trailing downwards to meet his hands which were already at her ribs, brushing and cupping her breasts.

Sauce from his shirt had transferred onto her skin during their first kiss and Barry was dutifully licking it off, with intermittent kisses on her clavicle, her breast bone, and the tops of her breasts. There was a slight grazing of teeth and Iris gasped, biting down on her bottom lip. She buried her fingers in his hair again as he started to swirl his tongue around her areola. 

Barry was bent at an awkward angle, so Iris tugged on his hair. “We should – the bed—”

She pushed him to sit, and then straddled his lap. He continued his attention to her breasts, breathy moans escaping her because wow he’s pretty good at this, and damn it’s been a while. It’s been almost a year since she’d been physically intimate with another person.

She tugged his shirt over his head and in their excitement, they struggled to remove the rest of their clothing with any kind of grace.

They fell together in a disorganized fashion, limbs knocking against each other in an uncoordinated dance. It's weird, in retrospect, how discombobulated they were. Prior to the emergence of the Flash, Iris was a firm believer that nothing in this world was promised. How could she take comfort in the idea of fate when much of her childhood was riddled in pain and loss? Which was why it was jarring to hear about her future last year. An entwined destiny, the timelines of their lives loosely mapped by a multiverse and a precognitive artificial intelligent personal assistant named Gideon (Siri and Cortana who?) 

This wasn’t quite what she imagined would happen if and when they finally expressed their mutual feelings for each other (and she did imagine it a lot – the confession and them having _sex_ , separately). She imagined something more epic, more talking, more clothing, a tear shed here, a shy kiss there, definitely less garlic breath, but instead they've entangled themselves in an embrace in a room she distinctly remembered hanging out in after school, listening to Kool 97.8 while she checked her algebra homework against his and he’d try to distract her by making her laugh when he imitated the singers on the radio. 

If it was destiny’s plan for them to get together by having sex in Barry’s childhood bedroom… Well.

Iris smiled against Barry’s lips. 

Destiny or no, epic or not, the spontaneity paradoxically felt both ridiculous and right.

She tucked her hand under his waistband and gripped his length, and Barry’s head fell backward onto the pillow. She watched him squeeze his eyes shut, how he twitched with every hitch of his breath when she travelled along his length. She started to trail her lips along his jaw, down his neck, and to his chest, grazing her teeth on his nipples, mimicking his actions earlier.

“Fuck – Iris –”

“Yeah, you better.” She let go of him and tugged his boxers down.

Barry sat up, his hands running up her thighs, squeezing her and pulling her onto his lap. She released a cry when his fingers reached between them and met her slickness. He used two fingers to spread her lips and before he could do much else, she dipped her hips down and forward and rubbed herself against his stiffness. He dropped his forehead on her shoulder and breathed out a heavy moan that she could feel against her clavicle.

“Wait,” he finally said, lifting his head. “The condoms, they’re back in my underwear drawer—”

Iris kept moving back and forth, grinding against him and increasing her pace. “It’s fine,” she panted, “I have – _fuck_ , I have an IED— I mean…”

Barry chuckled against her skin, his hips rocking with hers, “I’ve always known you were the bomb, but—”

“God, shut—” She tugged at his hair, embarrassment flooding her cheeks. His eyes were dark now, and they glittered in amusement. “IUD. You know what I meant.”

“Yeah.” They slowed down their movements, slightly sobering up. Barry’s smile faded. “I’m clean. And I haven’t – not since…”

“Me too,” Iris nodded in understanding.

With anyone else, this wouldn’t have been enough and she would have required a fuller verbal reassurance, but this was Barry, her Barry. 

He gave her a tender kiss before nodding as well. “Okay.”

He gripped her hips, helping her onto her knees, and she gripped him, rubbing the head against her clit and making him bite down on his lower lip, a moan trapped in his throat, before finally Iris sank down on him with a moan of her own.

For a moment they both sat there, their heavy breathing being mixed in the small space between them, soaking in the sensation of this, each other. The butterflies in her stomach transformed into something molten, swirling up her spine. She tensed, squeezing his cock and lifting up before sinking down again. Barry groaned, his fingers digging into her ass as he started to help her with the pace, agonizingly slow as she moved up, but pulling her back down with enough speed and force to release a grunt from both of them. 

After a while she pushed him back down and leaned against him with her hands squeezing his pecs, towering over him. The new angle had him hitting just the right spot, urging Iris to ride him faster.

“So good, Ir—”

“Barry, fuck, Barry,” Iris panted. She removed one of hands from his chest and started to rub herself, occasionally touching his cock as he pulled out with each erratic thrust.

She came with a shout, still clenching around him as Barry flipped them over, lifting her legs to wrap around his waist and thrusting several times before he finally finished, her name in his mouth like a chant. He leaned down, letting his elbows brace her head and he cradled her head, taking his time to kiss her lazily.

“Do you want to get dinner sometime?” Barry asked, slipping out of her to lay on his side next to her. Her hips and her legs were still quivering, and he rubbed her thighs up and down to help calm her. 

Iris raised her eyes to look at him. He was staring at her breasts, which were still heaving with her deep breathing. “What? We’re having dinner tonight.”

Barry rolled his eyes, huffing, “I meant with me. On a date.”

She pressed a hand to her face, giggling. She felt silly, but blamed it on the orgasm she was still coming down from. She told him so, and his face broke into a grin looking very pleased with himself. 

“Yeah,” she nodded finally, turning onto her side to face him. “Yes. Let’s get dinner sometime.”

He started peppering kisses along her jawline, whispering, “Cool.”

“Yeah,” Iris breathed, being pushed gently onto her back once more as he groped her breasts. “Very cool.”

Barry made it all the way to her navel when they heard the familiar click of a car door being locked outside. Barry lifted his head as Iris sat up, panic settling on their faces.

“Shit—”

Iris found herself in the bathroom, her towel and Barry’s clean clothes sitting on the counter. She rushed to the door, creaking it open and peering through to see a whirlwind cracked with lightning inside Barry’s room as he sped around to clean up and air out the aroma of sex.

She watched as he finally slowed down, walking out of the room dressed with a fresh shirt on, combing his hands through his hair. She giggled and he caught her through the crack in the bathroom doorway and he stuck his head in to peck her on the lips.

“Make it quick,” he pleaded. “I don’t know how long I can act casual around Joe after we _just_ had sex in his house.” 

Nearly ten minutes later, when Iris shuffled her way down the stairs in Barry’s clothes, as far as she could tell, Barry handled being alone with her dad quite well.

They were at the dining table. Joe West sat at the head, already sipping on a glass of wine. Barry was leaning against the back of one of the other chairs, his cellphone clenched in his fist. The two of them were discussing a case that the S.A. needed more details on when they noticed Iris.

“Hey, Iris…” Joe’s greeting faded as he eyed her get up and the fact that her hair was dry. “None of the marinara sauce managed to get in your hair?”

“Barry caught you up on that, did he?” Iris raised her eyebrow at the culprit and because Joe couldn’t see his face, he winked at her. She tried her best to ignore him, turning back to look at her father and pat her messy top bun, stating, “It’s a miracle.” 

Joe raised his glass as a small toast.

Iris turned to Barry and kept her voice even, “How’s the cooking going?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking sheepish, and Joe chuckled into his glass of wine. Iris looked back and forth between the two of them before settling her narrowed eyes at Barry.

“I just ordered pizza. It’ll be here in 30 minutes.”

“What—” Iris smacked Barry’s arm. “What did you do?”

He flinched, blushing, “I burned the pasta. I messed up, okay? I mean the salad is ready, and the rolls are salvageable, but, well, sorry! I got distracted.”

The way he was looking intently at her, Iris could feel the warmth creeping up her neck and she tried to keep her face straight before turning to her dad, gesturing at her damp clothes in her arms. “Well! Don’t mind if I wash this, dad? I mean we got time before dinner…”

Joe tsked but waved her off. “Millenials,” he joked. “They only come home to do their laundry…”

Wally texted that he was going to get food with some of his classmates so they started dinner without him. That was unfortunate. While Iris wanted to spend some time with her brother before the day was through, she also needed him to be present at dinner to be used as a conversational buffer because what were little brothers for if not to be used for some social engineering with parents?

Thankfully dinner went on without any awkward moments, even when Iris got into some inadvertent footsie war with Barry (him and his cursed long legs with no conscience towards other people’s personal space). Though she couldn’t help but notice her father pouring more wine into his glass. Maybe it was just a stressful day at work.

Joe was expected in court early the next morning, so he went to bed as soon as Barry and Iris offered to clean up. At the sound of Joe’s footsteps fading as he reached the second story, Barry zipped around and the dishes Iris was carrying to the sink disappeared, the kitchen spotless. He appeared before her, giddy with excitement.

Iris raised an eyebrow as Barry stepped closer, his hands resting on her hips, backing her against the frame separating the dining room and the kitchen, kissing her along her jawline. She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered, “I can’t believe you burned pasta.”

He groaned into her neck, “Like I said, I was distracted.”

He pulled her close. She was already on her tippy toes when she felt herself being lifted a couple inches. Their foreheads were pressed together, heady breaths warming the small amount of space between them as Barry grabbed her behind her knee and lifted it to his waist. Iris arched her back against the frame, trying to find purchase in the friction, instead finding Barry hard against her.

“We shouldn’t - not while my _dad_ is upstairs,” Iris whispered, trying to ignore the fact that she was not wearing underwear underneath these sweats, and that was nearly failing to convince herself that she needed to stick to the rules she was setting.

Barry sighed, setting her back down. “I know,” he said, trying to not sound disappointed. “You’re right. But we can still make out?”

She couldn’t help but laugh at his hopeful expression. She nodded. “Oh, yeah.”

He pulled her to the sofa, sinking into the cushions and drawing Iris’ knees to both sides of his hips until she straddled his lap. 

“This isn’t weird,” whispered Iris, shooting worrying glances between Barry and at the stairs behind him as he peppered kisses along her jawline to her ear. “Is this weird?”

Barry shrugged, ignoring her paranoia and whispered, “You don’t know how many fantasies I’ve had of you and this couch.”

She laughed. “Just me and the couch? That’s weird. Are you in any of these fantasies?”

Barry slid his hands through her hair, disrupting the messy bun she had to cradle her neck and bringing her to face him. “Nope,” he joked. “And it _was_ super weird, you two got into some interesting stuff—”

“Barry!” Iris dug her nails into his sides and Barry threw his head back, barking with laughter. She quickly clamped a hand over his mouth. “Shh!”

She tried her hardest to keep them quiet, Barry squirming underneath her while her eyes were glued to the stairs, praying that the light didn’t turn on, when she felt Barry’s fingers find their way to her armpits. She squealed, twisting her body away from his hands and landed on her side at the other end of the couch. Barry followed her, smiling above her, and instead of continuing the tickle war, bent his head lower to press a gentle kiss upon her cheek, then the corner of her lips, before finally capturing her lips.

Her once tense muscles relaxed, the warmth of his body blanketed above her seeping into her bones. When he released her lips she found herself chasing after him, opening her eyes to see him staring down at her. She felt slightly self conscious at his stare as his eyes darting to different parts of her face, his mouth twitching between a smile and a gape. He shook his head slightly and Iris cocked hers, interest piqued.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Iris, I…” Barry focused on her lips, hesitant to say any more. Just as he looked like he was about to continue, a short buzz was heard in the distance. He sat back and Iris sat up, looking at the stairs.

“I think that was the dyer,” said Barry quietly. He got off her, avoiding her eyes, and helped her up. 

She clasped his hand in hers and pulled him to follow her. He stayed silent as they made their way down the narrow stairwell to the basement, making Iris slightly nervous. 

He leaned against the washer as Iris bent down to remove her clothes from the dryer. When she began a slow process of folding them on top of the dryer, Barry finally spoke again. 

“It’s pretty late. Maybe you should just stay here.” He shrugged, a playful grin tugging the corner of his mouth. “Spend the night.”

“Really?” Iris asked skeptically, shooting a glance upwards to indicate her father already upstairs. “I don’t think so.”

“I figured.” He took her rejection easily. “Just thought I’d ask.”

“Bold move, Allen.”

“I mean, we did just have sex in the house we grew up in, so…”

She laughed.

“I’m happy,” he confessed. The look he had on earlier on the couch was back on his face. Confused, but now unabashed in its earnestness, it made Iris overwhelmed with warmth. “You make me feel invincible.”

How could she not kiss him?

She found herself seated on the dryer when they finally separated. 

“Come over to my place tomorrow night,” she suggested in a low voice, as Barry rested his head on her shoulder. “You can pick up the clothes I’m borrowing, we can get take out, and talk…”

He nodded quickly, agreeing, “Yeah, we should talk.”

He captured her lips again, almost desperately so. His grip on her hips pulled her to the edge of the dyer and his hands moved to touch her skin under his sweater. She arched closer to him all while trying to keep up with him. He was electric, and frantic, and she had to cradle his jaws in her hand to get him to slow down.

“Barry, Barry—” She whispered as she pulled away.

“I love you, Iris,” he blurted. “I never stopped. I’m sorry.”

She frowned. “Why are you apologizing?”

He shook his head. “It’s not fair to you. I know we just started this – thing,” he shook his head again, “Us. I’m trying to be cool and I didn’t want to pressure you into anything this fast, but I couldn’t keep it in. I’m sorry.”

She gasped at how his word were flooding her heart, it felt like it was going to burst with affection towards him. How could he tell her such beautiful things and then apologize, practically trying to take them back? She shook her head, wishing he’d stop apologizing. “Barry, I—”

“No, you don’t have to say anything back, not if you don’t…” He trailed off.

Iris was going to shake him if he didn’t stop. But the sound of the front door shutting interrupted her and Barry stepped backwards so she could jump down.

They both bounded up the stairs and Iris stuck her head into the hallway to see her brother taking his shoes off.

“Hey, Wally,” she greeted. “Did you eat?”

“Yeah, we got pizza. Sorry I missed dinner, I know you were cooking.”

“Actually,” Barry spoke up from behind Iris, walking past her nonchalantly with a glass of water, “we had pizza too. There’s leftovers in the fridge if you’re still hungry.”

“I’m pretty full, thanks though,” Wally shook his head, patting his stomach. Then he eyed the rest of Iris’ outfit when she moved into the hallway. “You staying over?”

Iris blushed, plucking at the material of Barry’s sweats. “Uh, no. This is a long story. I’m actually heading out soon. Free for lunch tomorrow?”

Wally nodded, heading towards the stairs. “Yup. See you tomorrow. Night Iris, Barry.”

Barry was avoiding her eyes as Wally trudged up the stairs. Iris hugged her clothes to her chest. They were still a bit warm from the dryer.

When Wally’s footsteps finally faded into his room, Iris nudged Barry. “Walk me to my car?”

He nodded, and as Iris sat on the steps that sunk into the living room to put on her shoes, she suddenly remembered about the onion from earlier. She fished it out from under the couch and handed it to Barry.

He stared at the onion with disbelief. “Do we have a secret garden under that couch?”

“Yes,” Iris said facetiously, continuing the joke from earlier. “It’s one of many weird things me and ol’ couchy got up to.”

He chuckled, and Iris was glad he seemed less tense.

“You’re coming over tomorrow, right?” Iris asked when they finally reached her car. 

“Yes,” Barry confirmed, tossing the onion and catching it. “Of course.”

“Also, before you interrupted me, I wanted to say that I love you too.” He sighed, starting to speak, so she tugged on his hand, needing him to believe her. “I love you, Barry.” She pulled him down for a kiss before wrapping her hands around him in a tight hug. “I do.”

His eyes were wet when she let go of him, but he was smiling.

“You know, you could stay over at my place tonight,” Iris suggested.

He laughed. “Bold, West.”

She shrugged. “What can I say? I’m in love.”


End file.
